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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

So About That 4 Month Hiatus...

hello? hello? is this thing on?

I've never been super diligent with this blog over the years, despite various attempts at getting myself into a good routine. But four months has definitely been the longest break I've ever taken. You know when you have trouble remembering how to start a new blog post in blogger that it's been a while!

So what have I been up to in the past few months? Well - my job finally upgraded my blackberry to a droid and I can actually do things like access the internet and have apps like INSTAGRAM. You have no idea how excited I am to finally have instagram. Like. so excited. You should totally follow me at iamkilobravo!! I miss typing on my blackberry, but since I had no choice I'll say having IG is worth it. All of the cat pics that I refrain from sharing on fb and this blog can be found on IG in case you feel you've been missing that in your life. You've been warned.

Hmm...what else...Tom and I are finally dipping our toes into house hunting! It took us a long time to narrow down the towns that would work for us so we both had manageable commutes, but still have a real house and backyard by NYC suburb standards. I don't know if people outside of the NYC area can really appreciate how hard it can be to have those things. All of it comes at a premium as well, so saving our pennies for the past 7 years together has been totally worth it as we look at what we can finally afford. The original goal was to actually move by the end of this year, but we started our search a little early in order to get to know the neighborhoods, and we've actually seen a few houses we like that we can afford so we might pull the trigger sooner if it feels right. We have been all over the place as we narrow down what we really want in our home and I have no idea what we will end up with, but it is an equally exhilarating and frustrating experience and I'm so excited that we started a little earlier than planned.

Tax season...tax season...tax season...

Hmm...oh yeah - how could I forget? I'M COOKING A BABY IN MY BELLY!!!!!!!

Yes! We are pregnant! And I'm 21 weeks as I write this. I dragged Tom outside this weekend to take some photos of ourselves as it was the warmest day we've had all winter (I know it's spring, but it still really feels like winter most days here). I think our tripod did a great job getting our good sides.

So I have so much I want to say about my pregnancy so far, and I'll try to keep it to the highlights (ha), but I want to elaborate on how we found out just a bit first. Humor me, please.

We had been trying for what felt like too long - just a few months short of a year when I finally went to my doctor right after our trip to Norway in November. (Any long time readers may have noticed I never did New Years goals for 2013 because the only goal I gave myself was to get pregnant). I specifically went after our trip because I figured if I got some not so great news, I didn't want it to ruin our trip, and figured some blissful ignorance for a few more days was a healthy way to deal with things. When I went in to see her we discussed what methods we had been using to track everything (OPKs, BBT, and watching for the old EW if you're into knowing about that stuff - so basically EVERY method because I'm a micromanager) and she told me I would come back on my next cycle to take some preliminary blood tests and we would go from there. And no joke she said the following to me: "Hopefully we won't even get to the blood tests because maybe you are pregnant right now!" And three weeks later I was back in her office taking a blood test because I had not had a visit from Aunt Flo, nor was I getting a positive pregnancy test yet. She called me the next day to tell me I was indeed pregnant! It was the best news and I could barely believe it after what she had said just three weeks before. Basically she chalked up the length of time it took us to get pregnant to my highly irregular system (even doing all those things, science (hormone levels and fetus size) still thinks we conceived about 10 days after I think we did) and the stress of trying. I really feel like once I had given into the idea that maybe this wouldn't happen the easy way for us, I had just enough of a "f*ck it" attitude to finally reduce the stress enough to let it happen. Even our teeny taste of facing infertility gave me the utmost respect for women and families that really truly go through the various stages of infertility. I will forever be thankful and humble for the experience we have had.

Still with me? Ok now some of the fun stuff and the not so fun stuff. We told our immediate families on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day by getting everyone to do group photos and yelling "saaaaay Kayla'a pregnant!" in the hopes to actually catch pictures of everyone reacting to the news. Tom's family was soo good at holding their pose that no one dared move a muscle to react until after the flash went off! My mother was a little less restrained and I'm pretty sure we have a picture of her pushing my dad out of the way to bite my cheek. Totally appropriate response. I love you Mom,. never change.

I have never really had a strong sense of smell but holy crap did it kick into overdrive about a week before Christmas when I was about 4 or 5 weeks along. It was like day and night. I went from feeling like normal me, to suddenly not being able to handle any smells, or even the sight of certain foods. I didn't know who the hell I was. And it lasted for what felt like forever. Weeks 5 - 16 can only be described as the worst hangover of my life. And I've had a lot of bad hangovers. There was just no relief and I was pretty convinced this would be our last biological child and it was adoption from here on out. It was hard on me and yes, I was one of those pregnant people that lost weight at first (don't hate the player, hate the game) but I think that stage was hardest on Tom. I didn't look pregnant yet and it was such an immediate switch to go from getting sick from any smells (I couldn't even walk into our kitchen to throw things in the garbage because I could smell food in the fridge) and to crying at the drop of a hat (twice I actually laughed so hard at jokes that I started hysterically crying) but there were no other visible signs that I was pregnant yet. I think it was really hard for him to wrap his head around how quickly I had changed, and how little control he had over anything. I stopped cleaning because I had no energy and just couldn't handle any smells. You can imagine how quickly we had to bite the bullet and hire the cleaning lady we had discussed hiring for the past few years. We would order food every night because I couldn't handle cooking, and my food would get there and I couldn't eat it. There was a lot of wasted money those first few months.

I felt like I popped right away - but in reality I just stopped sucking in my beer belly. I basically looked like College Kayla circa 2003 by the time I was 10 weeks. Around 14 - 15 weeks I really popped and was finally looking pregnant which felt very validating to me. It felt weird to me how excited I was to finally have a belly to show off. It was like "see, I told you guys I was pregnant and not just a lazy lunatic for the past 4 months!" Very validating indeed.

Now I'm at what everyone tells me is the fun part of the pregnancy. I've had a bit of insomnia the whole time, even though I feel tired, sleep just won't come and I wake up a lot throughout the night. Learning to sleep on my side has been tough as I'm a flat back sleeper with virtually no pillows most of the time. TGFS! (Thank god for snoogles). Enjoying bad acid reflux hasn't helped my sleeping either but I'm dealing. But it's all for a good cause, right? Right?

I think I'm beginning to feel kicks - or it's just gas. I'm honestly not sure. People have described a butterfly feeling but I don't think I've felt that. This is more like popcorn popping. And then I get down on myself for not knowing my body better and I start crying again. Oh hormones.

For anyone that hasn't figured out the math yet, we are due mid August, so as you can imagine I am SO looking forward to riding the subway in f*ucking July when I'm a sweaty gross slob. Speaking of the subway - I cried the first time someone offered me their seat. Yeah, I am that pregnant lady scaring strangers on the subway "gulp, thank you, waaah, so much, gulp, I'm sorry, I'm just, waaah, hormonal right, gulp, now".

So yeah - that is my really long excuse for not blogging for the past four months. I was a little preoccupied with trying not to vomit or cry. If you've made it this far - you get high fives and hugs!!